Today, more and more brands, media and companies are turning to TikTok as an alternative to Facebook and Google, the dependence on which has become so strong that many are ready to completely abandon cooperation with the two tech giants. But can TikTok "beat" the all-powerful social network and search engine? And how soon will this happen? Let's figure it out ...
Big companies are big problems
Faced with criticism from advocacy organizations and advertisers, Facebook is gradually losing ad revenue as the #stophateforprofit campaign continues. Meetings with advertisers were not successful: the head of the company, Mark Zuckerberg, and his top managers repeated the same mantra about increasing moderation and monitoring of posts containing hate speech, but the leadership of the social network has not yet taken real and strong steps. Facebook COO Sherrill Sandberg, in response to a report from legal auditors who checked the social network for tightening moderation rules, said that "there are no quick fixes to these problems, and they should not exist," hinting that the company will take a long time to cope with problem.
Moreover, many media outlets cut their advertising budgets during the quarantine in favor of a subscription model. And in a number of countries, such as Australia, France, Ireland, the media have decreased their activity as advertisers because Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google refused to pay them royalties. The UK is also unhappy with the social network and search engine, which take 80% of digital ad revenue. Moreover, during the quarantine, marketers of many companies also cut their advertising budgets on social networks. All this led to a significant decrease in the cost per click. In May, the CPM returned to the pre-quarantine level, then in June the #stophateforprofit campaign broke out. And again the CPM fell.
It is not yet known exactly how much Facebook lost in ad revenue, but it is known for certain that within one day, when large brands such as Coca-Cola joined the boycott, Mark Zuckerberg's fortune fell by more than $ 7 billion due to falling stock prices. It is also known that eMarketer analysts predicted a 5.3% drawdown in ad revenue for Google for this year. And Facebook and Google are now under pressure from the US Antitrust Committee, which also does not make life easier for them.
And while Mr. Zuckerberg is trying to keep a good face on a bad game, advertisers are increasingly looking at TikTok. Marketers, by the way, say that this platform may well become a worthy competitor to Facebook. Even though the application has been banned in India and attempts are being made to ban it in the USA and Australia.
Serious competitor
On June 26, 2020, it became known that TikTok launched a marketing platform for brands "TikTok for Business", which it tested during 2019. This platform offers the following tools:
Brand Takeover is a full-screen banner with a 3-5 second countdown to the close button.
The Hashtag Challenge is a brand-name flash mob that lasts six days.
In-Feed Video is a campaign with a video for 5-15 seconds in the users' feed.
Brand Effect - branded 2D or 3D filters.
AR tool Brand Scan. It will allow you to add effects to the foreground or background of the video.
In addition, TikTok has launched an online educational center, where marketers will be helped to learn the specifics of working with the platform, its marketing tools and advertising formats. Students are expected not only by theory, but also by practice. The company said it will provide marketers with product guides and breakdowns of the most successful cases.
On June 29, video hosting YouTube announced testing of shooting 15-second clips through a mobile application. Naturally, the news was seen as an attempt to challenge TikTok.
On July 2, Facebook announced the launch of the short video service Reels on Instagram, which is nothing more than a TikTok analogue! Attempt number two.
On July 9, Google writes on its blog about successful testing of the Swirl ad format, which ensures maximum user engagement through the use of 3D technology - attempt number three ... Later, Google Area 120 launched the Shoploop video platform for finding, browsing and buying goods. Apparently in the hope of finishing off TikTok. And that's try number four.
What does this all mean? That both Google and Facebook see a strong competitor in the Chinese platform, therefore they are trying to offer an alternative to their users in order to keep them on their own sites as long as possible.
Tempting offer
However, TikTok is quite successful in pulling the blanket over itself, and not only thanks to the problems faced by Google and Facebook, but also the 30% discount for newcomer advertisers, which lasted for the first three months. And you shouldn't blame the Chinese for dumping. Snapchat pursued the same policy in 2017 to increase the flow of advertisers. When the company considered that there were enough of them, the action was stopped. TikTok also intends to provide $ 100 million in loans to SMEs in 18 countries as part of the back-to-business campaign, which makes this platform even more attractive.
According to Modern Retail, the first to choose TikTok as a replacement for Facebook and Instagram were SMEs, who suffered the most economically during the pandemic and are now forced to build momentum with unprecedented speed and zeal. Thanks to TikTok, they were able to demonstrate the ethics and sustainability of their brands by joining the #stophateforprofit boycott, and at the same time, they got a good advertising space, embodying their most creative ideas.
Yes, even a year or six months ago, representatives of SMEs did not regard TikTok as an advertising platform. But the coronavirus has made adjustments. And today the popularity of the platform is growing by leaps and bounds, so Big Tech companies should act faster and more prudently. Judge for yourself: according to data from the analyst company Sensor Tower, 19% of downloads (about 439 million) fell on the period from March 1 to July 8, 2020. And according to Comscore, the average time spent on the app per US user per month from October 2019 to May 2020 increased 93% to 855.6 minutes.
Facebook and TikTok are not the same
Facebook and TikTok are certainly not interchangeable. TikTok's marketing tools are still in their infancy and refinement, trends are constantly changing, followed by the mood of the audience, and therefore targeting is not easy. Moreover, creating ad videos requires a lot more effort, dedication and creativity, as it is much easier to place static ads on Facebook or use Swirl to display on Google.
For advertisers not looking to target a young audience, YouTube is likely to be a more viable alternative to Facebook and Instagram given its structure and ad formats.
And as mentioned above, TikTok also has problems, and not small ones, which encourages advertisers and the media to behave with this platform carefully. But even if the overthrow of Facebook does happen, then, of course, not overnight: it will take both platforms and advertisers a long time to adapt and find the maximum number of points of contact
